More on basic interpretation of statistics for the critical appraiser. No maths, no formulas, no hard calculations. Just the tools to make the interpretation of results easier.

This week we look at relative risk (RR), absolute risk reduction (ARR) and number needed to treat (NNT). Are they different or the same?

You'll find that NNT is much more useful for the reader, things like relative risk have their place for statisticians and researchers who are seeking to understand their data. However, for clinicians and readers we would be better served by expressing data as NNT (or NNH).

What I want to get across is that with very little knowledge you can have a really good go at interpreting the stats in the papers you read. No calculators, no maths, no hard sums, just an appreciation of whether it looks as though the authors did the right sort of thing.

In this podcast we look at different types of data, what p-values are and how do we define confidence intervals.